by Ray Scott
It was dusk when Wallace approached the canal basin in Birmingham; after leaving the railway station he had caught a bus along Broad Street that dropped him near the entrance to the canal basin at Gas Street. He passed through the narrow arch that led to the canal bank and then pulled up with a jolt when he heard voices. He could see shadowy figures moving about on and near his boat and promptly dropped flat behind a row of garbage bins.
‘Is this bastard ever going to come back?’
‘No sign of him, he’s been gone a long time.’
‘Well he must be back sometime tonight or maybe tomorrow. We get him then…eh? Ravindran will be avenged!’
‘Well he won’t be coming back tonight now, I’d say, he’ll be staying somewhere like he did the night before last. He’ll be back tomorrow if not tonight.’
There were four of them, they walked up and down the paved area alongside a hamburger shop and then some way back along the tow path and paused near the bins where Wallace crouched trembling with fear.
‘Do we hang on any longer?’
‘In this cold? We’ll wait in the car for another hour or so. Go and fetch it and park it near the arch.’
One of them vanished through the archway and the others lit cigarettes.
‘Why not wait here behind these bins?’
‘You’re welcome if you can stand the smell!’ Wallace nearly froze with horror, but had time to agree with the sentiments. Somebody had ditched something nasty in the left hand bin and it stank to high heaven.
About three to four minutes passed and then Wallace caught sight of headlights sliding across the archway and the sound of a car engine on the roadway above.
‘Come on, we’ll wait in the car, it’s too cold to hang around out here. We’ll see him when he comes back. To reach the boat he’s got to pass through the archway.’
They moved off and disappeared in the direction of Gas Street. Wallace lay behind the bin for about ten more minutes, suspecting a possible trap or, at best, that someone could come back having forgotten something. But nothing happened, he crept out furtively and ran at the crouch down the paved tow path and cautiously boarded the boat. He had inevitable fears of a fifth man lying in wait on the boat, but after crawling around on hands and knees on the deck and peering cautiously around corners down below he was satisfied there was nobody there.
It was as cold on the boat as it was outside, he could appreciate that the four men, whoever they were, would prefer to wait in a warm motor vehicle sooner than hang around either by the boat or on it.
Wallace crept down below and considered what to do. Clearly he had to move; to stay there would be suicide. He picked up the canal map and examined it with a torch, holding a blanket over his head, the map and the torch.
He would have to pass under Broad Street, retracing his steps to some degree, and then take another arm to travel in the direction of Stourbridge. So he had to turn the boat around, a good idea if attempting to throw them off the scent. Dare he start the engine? Maybe not, it would have to be sheer muscle until he had manoeuvred under the bridge and was well out of earshot.
Wallace unhitched the boat and armed himself with a barge pole, reflecting that it may also come in handy as a weapon if they returned. He fended off and the boat’s stern swung into the centre of the canal. He prayed that no other craft would come in at a high rate of knots while he was executing the manoeuvre, though it was highly unlikely at this time of night. He ran to the bow and pushed hard, fortunately the canal basin was wide at this point. Nevertheless the bow hit the opposite bank, he fended off again and nearly fell overboard.
‘Damn you, come on!’ Wallace hissed angrily, it must have heard him because it came off the bank and swung slowly around. He raced to the stern and pushed hard, the bow was now pointing at the bridge over Broad Street. He inserted the pole into the canal and pushed, in the manner of a gondolier. He didn’t dare push too hard, having had heard stories of enthusiastic ‘punters’ pushing deep into the puddle, the waterproof clay that formed the canal side and bottom, puncturing it and causing a leak. He didn’t want to lose the pole either, or be left holding onto it if it stuck in the mud, while the boat drifted off and left him behind.
The boat slowly began to move. It moved slowly and headed for the bank. Then it struck him, why the hell was he fooling around with the pole? The tow path! Boats always used to be towed by man and horse before the introduction of the internal combustion engine. He ran to the bow, seized the mooring rope and leapt onto the bank. He hauled on it and the boat followed, burying its bow into the bank. The rudder! The rudder had to be set with an inclination to starboard so when hauled the boat would try to head for midstream.
Wallace clambered back on board and lashed the tiller so that it set the rudder at a slight inclination to starboard, then jumped off again, reached the tow path and started hauling. It worked like a dream. Setting a good pace, he set off with the boat obediently following. It was easier than he expected, it was now clear why those engineers of two centuries ago had deemed that waterborne traffic was easier than horse and cart on primitive roads. One man could do what previously required two or four horses on a road.
Wallace travelled all night, towing the boat. He had some trouble with locks in the dark but the moon was bright and enabled him to see what he was doing. He was also assisted by the fact that only lunatics moved on the canals at night and apart from a: ‘What the bloody hell was that?’ emanating from one pleasure craft incongruously moored near Birmingham’s industrial centre, he moved some distance without creating too much of a stir.
Towing the craft was good therapy and he had time to think over the day. Murray Craddock, Wallace was certain in his mind that the man in the shop must be him, had been a grey, wiry haired man, about 5’10” tall and who had the chest of a bull. He had tended to speak in clichés, but he seemed all right. The conversation in the main had been limited to Australia and where they came from, Craddock said he was a Sydneysider and had lived there for most of his life from the age of two years, though born in England. Wallace made a mental note of those facts to relay onto McKay, they may or may not be correct.
They had stayed chatting for over an hour. Wallace had had a cup of tea with him in the room at the rear of the shop, much to the displeasure of the stern looking Adele Briscoe. If she was paying him a wage maybe she objected to him passing the time of day and doing no work, surely a capitalistic trait! When Wallace finally left he had paused by the door and pressed the tit of the camera about three times…feeling like a Judas. Craddock by then had deviated to serve another customer so Wallace doubted whether anything had been noticed about his clumsy stance by the shop doorway.
‘Come and see me at the week end; here’s the address,’ Craddock had said enthusiastically. ‘I don’t get many visitors from Down Under.’
He had been an easy conversationalist; they had even strayed onto Australian Rules football and the New South Wales Rugby League competition. Wallace found Adele Briscoe to be uninteresting; she was lean and angular and looked very studious and intense. Wallace could imagine her striding up and down at the head of demonstrations carrying placards. Her accent was indeterminate, whereas Craddock’s was unmistakeably Australian; her accent tended to be neutral, neither north nor south, in the manner of BBC or ABC newscasters.
The next puzzle was the four men who had been examining the boat in the Broad Street basin. Who were they and how had they traced him? The first question seemed the easier of the two, from their comments about Ravindran they sounded as if they were his friends and Wallace couldn’t repress a shudder at the fate he might suffer if they caught up with him. Being pursued by a further pack of hounds was something that Wallace could do without, it seemed that he now had the police, Kalim and his men as they would now know Wallace had escaped from what was nominally his own apartment block before the police arrived, and now Ravindran’s former political associates. The accents of the Broad Street men had sounded Asian from what
little he could hear, presumably long resident in England since they had conversed in English.
Wallace found that he was approaching a small bridge, the tow path went under it and a parapet separated the tow path from the canal. He clambered onto it and rested awhile, it was hard work pulling the craft.
The intruders on the boat had complained about the cold, which had worked in Wallace’s favour. It had been very cold when he started hauling the craft, but after some hours acting as a cart horse he was perspiring freely. The cold air on his damp body and forehead felt good, and as he looked at the moon and the stars he felt good and at peace with the world. He could hear the occasional flurry of wings, which he assumed could be owls, and plopping noise from the water that could be fish, otters or water rats. Far away he heard a curlew call.
In the distance there were occasional headlights flashing and a rumbling of heavy traffic. There was also a railway nearby, he had already seen a couple of goods trains rattle and rumble their way along some distance ahead. What was incredible was that there was so much wild life, animals and birds, and yet according to the map he was still surrounded by much of the industrial conurbation that extended to the west of Birmingham. He estimated that he was somewhere in the vicinity of Winson Green, a dank, gloomy suburb whose only claim to fame was the prison. Wallace hoped he didn’t make first hand acquaintance with it.
After resting he continued on his way, he was moving in a cutting alongside the railway, the road on the left was well above and both canal and railway dived beneath it.
He determined at first light to ring McKay, he wanted to try and find out how Ravindran’s friends had locked onto him, also having made contact with who he assumed was Murray Craddock he did have something to report. He debated whether to let McKay know that he had blown his cover – as an Australian if not an ASIO or ASIS snooper – to Craddock, and decided to make a decision on that the following morning after sunrise.
He kept going until he could hear the morning rush hour taking place, he was still alongside the railway and the trains were frequent and full. He moored the boat and climbed aboard, absolutely tired out, collapsed across the bunk and slept a deep, full sleep.
Chapter 16
Wallace awoke with a start, he could hear footsteps overhead. He shot up out of the bunk in a wild panic and struck his head on the beam overhead. He cried out with the pain, which he hastily cut short, but there was an answering hail from above.
‘Am yo’ theer?’
It was a strange accent Wallace could not place, but whatever it was it was English and not foreign. Wallace had become aware by this time of the variation of accents within England, Wales and Scotland; especially the first named, and could appreciate the impossibility of a Cornishman trying to understand anything anyone from Northumberland or Yorkshire might utter.
He pulled on his trousers and shirt and made for the companion way leading to the wheel house, and finally stuck his head out at deck level. That it could be a trick by the three sets of hounds chasing him across England did occur to him but his head had reached the mild sunshine before it really registered. A man wearing jeans, a blue shirt and with a cloth cap on his head was standing square on the deck looking down at him and he gave a friendly grin which showed one or two gaps in his teeth.
‘Ow do!’ he said.
‘G’day…Um…Good Morning!’ Wallace replied, hastily checking the damning ‘G’day’ that could have stamped his origins straight away.
‘’Ave yer got any shooger, maite?’
Wallace deliberated on this for a few seconds; then got the message.
‘Yes…I think so. Wait a minute, I’ll have a look.’
There was a heavy commercial barge moored astern of his craft that was painted a sober black. It had the words “Thomas Jeavons & Sons” in red lettering along the front of the cabin and he could just see the beginnings of a similar notation along the side of the craft. He remembered McKay saying that there was still much commercial traffic along the waterways, especially in the Midlands. Manchester and London areas, and recalled that he had passed several such craft on the way up from London.
Wallace liked what he saw. Apart from his working clothing, the other man had a craggy face, much lined, with pale blue eyes from which shone contentment and absolute honesty. He had a tattoo on his left arm which was a kind of badge that initially Wallace failed to recognise, it looked something like the head of a wolf. He was about 5’9” tall and a bit overweight, particularly in the lower midriff area which indicated that he liked his beer. Wallace came back up the few steps he had taken to go below and beckoned to him.
‘Come on below,’ he said impulsively. ‘I’m just about to have a cup.’
‘Ta maite, will do!’
He followed Wallace below, and sat down on the bench while Wallace filled the kettle and placed it on the stove.
‘Going far?’ Wallace enquired as the other man sat down opposite him.
‘Doodlay!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Joost a few mile down the cut.’
Wallace digested this in silence, thinking back to the places he had seen on the map and assumed that he meant Dudley, a town in the vicinity that Wallace remembered had a zoo. The expression ‘cut’ was a puzzle until the thought occurred to him that it could be a colloquialism for the canal itself.
‘Weer’m yo’ ’eadin’?’
‘Stourport,’ Wallace replied, having managed to translate the last question more quickly this time. This wasn’t strictly true, he was heading for its near namesake Stourbridge, but Stourport being the junction of the canal with the River Severn it sounded like a more convincing destination.
The other man nodded and then took out a pipe. He looked at Wallace quizzically as he held up the pipe, Wallace spread out his hands indicating that he had no objection. Wallace quite liked the smell of pipe smoke; he offered his tobacco pouch but Wallace smilingly declined.
He was a stocky man, tanned by years of exposure to the elements his face was a picture of contentment and good humour, there were laughter lines at the corners of his eyes that seemed to permanently crease as he talked while his eyes twinkled. There was little need for Wallace to do anything to stimulate the conversation, he clearly wanted to chat and there was no stopping him.
He talked about the ‘cut’, which Wallace had by now correctly deduced was the local term for canals, and talked of places such as Tipton, Wednesfield, Wednesbury, Bilston, Darlaston and Gornal and many others which Wallace had seen on the canal map as being part of the vast conurbation around Birmingham and other Midland towns.
Wolverhampton was also mentioned, he mentioned the Wolves as well, being Wolverhampton Wanderers, which denoted that they were his local football team. Wallace gathered later in the conversation that the tattoo on his arm was the football club’s logo, and ruminated that everyone was the same the world over. He remembered one of his school friends, years ago, having had the Essendon Football Club logo tattooed on his forearm.
The kettle whistled which temporarily stemmed his flow of conversation and then he was off again. Wallace found that his accent, a mystery at first, became more understandable as he went on. It didn’t sound like Birmingham, he knew that well enough as he had a friend, Bill Astley, in Melbourne who was a real Brummie. The ‘eeee’ sound from his guest seemed to lengthen, where the Brummie would have pronounced it with an ‘er-ee’ intonation, something similar to the Aussie pronunciation.
His name was Hackett, Fred Hackett. He was aged about 50 and had been on canal barges all his life. He bemoaned the fact that the waterways had fallen into disuse in many areas, he mentioned that he detested pleasure boats – they got in his way and were operated by inexperienced people – but conceded that there was no doubt they had given the canal system a new lease of life. He also hastily stressed that present company was excepted! He drank his tea after noisily stirring it and putting half the contents of Wallace’s sugar bowl into it before trying it. Wallace could see why he had run
out of sugar.
‘Which way’m yo’ a gooing to Stowerport?’ he enquired.
‘Through Wolverhampton,’ Wallace replied, after a short delay while he processed and translated it in his mind.
‘Yo’ ay ’in no ’urry then?’
Wallace silently translated that one as well and then shook his head.
‘Yo’ cor be in ’urry if yome a gooin’ that way, why doan yo’ goo through the toonel at Netherton?’
Wallace shrugged. He had seen that there was a long tunnel that branched off not far up the canal. He had looked at it hard and long despite his increase in confidence after having negotiated the Blisworth and Braunceston tunnels, but had then decided to go the longer way via Sneyd Junction and Wednesfield, then due south through Wombourne and Swindon and thence onto Stourbridge. He knew it was a very long way round, but had discounted the Netherton Tunnel and the longer Dudley Tunnel as the thought of them still brought about feelings of claustrophobia. Wallace repeatedly told himself that he had already negotiated the Blisworth and Braunston tunnels on the Oxford Canal but still entertained misgivings.
‘It ay a bad way o’ gooin’,’ remarked his new friend. ‘Jus’ keep the lights on and yo wo’ ’it nobody.’
By this time Wallace was able to translate most of his sayings; he struggled with this one but finally made it. Hackett finished his tea, and accepted a small bag of sugar that Wallace had prepared for him.
‘Ah’d best be a-gooin’,’ he remarked, getting up and stretching himself, he sucked on his pipe and expelled a huge cloud of smoke throughout the cabin. ‘Ah’m a-gooin’ to Stowerport after I’ve dropped this lot…’ he jerked his thumb in the direction of his own craft that lay astern. ‘Ah may see yo’ again, then.’
